


The little tyrant of puppet strings

by menthuthuyoupi



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, pitou is nb and uses he/him pronouns here, pitou-centric, some scenes and detail from the anime/manga skipped because i was too lazy to write them in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 10:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18134585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menthuthuyoupi/pseuds/menthuthuyoupi
Summary: Neferpitou in a flash. From beginning, to end.





	The little tyrant of puppet strings

Child-ant hears the outside world, hears it framed in slivers of voices.

Eyes peel back, against shades of marbling light.

There’s a big, big world out there, and it waits past whisper-thin membrane and a too-tiny shell of green.

 

He has dreamt of it, because he has nothing else to do but dream and obsess over his own heartbeat and that of the other guards beside him still being nurtured. Still growing, growing and growing.

When he dreams of the elusive world waiting for him, the imprints of it linger on the back of his eyelids and leaves something like joy tangled thick and heavy in his belly.

He wonders if simply just _being_ will be as good as he has imagined it in his sleep.

&

The air that he steals with each passing breath is one that belongs to a world that he and his kind will soon conquer. He takes this gift and nurses it deep in his chest, lets it fill his ribs and nestle within. Lets it expand with each collapse and swell of his lungs. ( Because it is something like a promise. )

Legs quiver feverishly with strength, pushing against boundaries, drawing stridulent and raspy with friction.

Aside from himself, duty is his constant companion. Duty, which is traced finely into the very lining of bone marrow, and the heart. ( It is revelation. ) He knows well that he is not born for himself. His life is never his own.

He is: Guardian, born and brimming with a purpose. Purpose meant for-- reserved for someone else.

There is no name to this _someone_ yet. No face, but he knows that when they come, they will bring with them infinite, boundless power and the ability to turn his very state of living into an act of worship.

 

There is that and hunger, an ever constant factor, that boils his blood.

He'd long ago gluttonously fed on the nutrients of the cord connecting him to his egg. Each pulsate of wondrous little heart marks a period for a wave of dull, painful hunger rippling fresh over his stomach. Now he basks in the company of himself alone, because there's no longer any room left for him to grow. His body beats furious, rhythmic tandem. A fine tuned orchestra of impatience.

 

Why should he have to wait, when there is all of the world to see? And a queen to protect, and a soon to be king-- a soon to be _God_ \-- that will carry the weight of perfection on his shoulders, sweeping divinity across the earth's land?

 

It is tight in here. Too tight and too hot. Restlessness makes his legs jerk instinctively; pulling tight against the amnion. Hard enough to _shred._

The membrane comes away, collapsing not unlike soft paper and the tender flesh of prey that he'll come to recognize as _human_.

The first royal guard is born quietly.

He lands without so much as a thump. Feline grace is lined into every fiber of muscle. Claws slathered in amniotic fluid, testily flex, stretching their ligaments.

Pitou takes his first breath. Savors it. Freedom is a new taste that feels too sweet and so much like heaven.

It is new and _exciting._

&

He is only a few moments born, but something has been straining at the atmosphere ( ambition- red black and it's sour taint ). Pitou feels it. The melody it plays is mercurial and foul.

Pitou cannot hear thoughts, but he can read the lines in between bodies where words do not speak. _Reads_ something like rebellion, weaving itself into a tight coil between the ridges of a foreign spine. It is blasphemy at it's finest. A type of malice that bleeds red and black and sweeps a tinge of bitterness onto the back of his tongue.

 

Ambition is not a pretty word, sometimes. It is ugly, especially when not used for the good of those who would rule. It's treachery is a needy and fickle thing. Pitou thinks, he is not ambitious. Like the cycles of the sunlit moon, he knows where he must rise and fall in relation to the colony and greater good.

Greed soils the mind and hearts of those that would serve the queen and soon, the king. It is a flaw, he thinks. It carries all of the designs of a disease, a spring-fevered weed that pushes through concrete to destroy and choke the life out of others for it’s own gain.

This colony has no room for ants-- for _fodder_ who desire to be more than they are, clotted with faulty dreams and wishful longing.

But Pitou knows his place. Pitou knows what he must do. Because of this, he thinks, he is a good guard. He is a good ~~puppet~~.

 

He flexes his aura; something so natural and right that it feels like _breathing_. He lets it slither into place, across the cavern to fill every hollow space. Command cloys the room, burning until it chokes the rebellion from the offender’s little skull.

Pitou’s lip begin to curl. It is not a movement dictated by disgust. Rather, amusement. Not the kind of lighthearted amusement you uncover in bright hearts and laughter that sounds all too much like ringing bells, but a cruel kind of amusement-- and it dances playfully around the edges of his lips and the fold of his cat-toothed, curve-lipped smile.

( This lesser thing craves for a type of power he cannot have. He is far too _small_ , too short-sighted. The throne will turn to rust beneath the likes of him and all order would cease to exist. )

Silence rains thick and barbed, but not for much longer. Pitou's countenance: placid, yet his voice slices thin like paper cut across vulnerable flesh. Lilting voice intentionally placed, to warrant attention.

 

“An interesting story. What’s this about gifts? May I join you?”

 

Pitou walks forward to join them and when he does, he is smooth, slow and calm, like gleaming waves that roll and break into steady lines of perfect control. No motion is wasted. Despite this, authority and confidence hides itself in his smug cat walk.

The perpetrator is no other than a mere soldier.

 

Pitou sees for the first time, submission take root and sprout in place of where malcontent once was. Submission in the way inferiority lowers itself, shamed eyes falling to the earth. Pitou will see the illusion of power dissipate beneath sheer authority, dashed hopelessly beneath a merciless heel.

 

_How could you have been so full of yourself? You were barely anything to begin with._

 

Nameless thing is hunched beneath him, displaying a new understanding of his role. He knows where he belongs. Because Pitou observes the spine once notched with wicked intent canting itself to the natural order of the hierarchy. This display is a respect and reverence fit for one of his rank.

It’s a type of obedience that makes pride flit across his heart, and the satisfaction that rises in his chest, sharp.

Pitou rests fingers atop the other’s skull. Feels the imperceptible tremors beneath the fine curvilinear of his claws, can feel that this lesser thing has yielded even through the network of hair laced underneath, against his skin.

 

It reminds him of how utterly animal they are all. How basic and quick soldiers are to change on a whim.

 _Pawn_ , he thinks, and marvels at the miracle that this common ant once possessed an ounce of pride.

 

Pitou barely keeps the impish grin from rising to his mouth, then his cheeks. Lets it knit across carefully lethargic features. Sleek, sleek little smile, that possesses more secrets than this ant could ever know.

 _Boring,_ Pitou concludes flatly. _Bored bored bored_ , he is, with the lack of resistance from this mindless soldier. It is a feeling he does not care for.

  
“You can relax nyow.”

( That is fine though, as long as shameless beast is beneath him, _knowing_ that he is lamentably weak as he has always been. Groveling, subdued. )

Interest lost, newborn guardian turns languidly away, because there was never a threat to order to begin with. This mindless ant is a paper tiger before a storm. Primitive. The animal rises to his eyes and fear coats him like a robe. He is a rabbit in every way, and the similarities do not stop at appearance.

 

It would not take much for Pitou to shred him.

He does not.

Why waste time on small fry, when a new prospect has presented itself? A new _idea_ that comes bearing a myriad of possibilities, easing into place instead, fresh dawning curiosity:

Tameable power.

 

“Let's talk over here.”

 

One step becomes two. Two becomes four. Pitou does not miss the way that unknown soldier bounces behind him like an eager puppy, riveted by fleeting mercy granted on a whim.

And then a teasing scent dances from his nostrils to his throat the next. It is _pungent_ with the overpowering aura of fear.

 

“By the way…” Pitou’s voice is slick, oozing with the tinge of mischief, because he is still young and the hint of human life scuttling beneath the crown of skulls like a frightened mouse holds no weight to him. He thinks nothing of it when he continues, drags out every moment of fine tuned pressure like it’s a mere game.  
  
“Why is there a live human beneath the bones?”

&

Later, when Pitou is digging into the human's brain, needles pulled flush into a cortex, he will think about how _fascinating_ this all is. The brain is powerful. Ingenious, but there are imperfections always to found. Nothing is infallible. Never. If there is one thing Pitou will learn, there is a weakness to everything; a crippling Achilles Heel. Coordination has been lost under the spell of perfect manipulation.

 

He feels like maybe he has been born for this.

 

Talent begins to coalesce itself into the tiniest of pieces at his handiwork. Fragile tissue lay pinned at his mercy, and the flow of knowledge is being appraised, evaluated as spoils of war. He smiles as he works and he whittles down. What was once complex and great has now been rendered as fragile as glass. Just a mere tool.

 

There's a simple word for it. It is called control. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing, and there’s a secret to doing it. Pitou has begun to learn it.

 

He hums to himself because this treasure and wealth of intellect is far too good. ( He has learned about the energy called “nen” and the possibilities are so exciting and endless! ) He learns and he takes it in and he can't get enough.

Pitou plays the human to his strings so easily like a puppet; tangling him within wire-sharp webs and strands of precise control. When he is finished, only the husk is left. He takes what's left and turns it to dust with the hint of a smile and a flash of pearly teeth.

 

Then decides: he could do this more.

 

Pitou does not question the way that the needles fit so perfectly in his hand, or the way they dance so precisely to the discipline in his fingers. It just feels so right.

&

The water does not rise in hungry tides. The leaf does not move with the ebb and pulse of power. It instead, crumples, withering away black and desolate before callous strength.

 

It’s end is punctuated by a chime of pleased, almost childlike laughter from Pitou.

 

For some reason, this makes him smile.

 

“You’re a specialist, Sir.”

Pitou pauses. Licks the corona of his ivory teeth in thought, feels the gaps between his incisors. _Sir_ . The honorary doesn't sound too bad. But, there is _something_ missing.

 

He responds immediately.  
  
“Call me Neferpitou.”

_That is the name the queen gave me._

&

The other ants so far are basic and very weak. Weak weak weak. Pitou finds, that they do not bear very good entertainment or even intriguing company. When they are busy being beaten black and blue to achieve strength that will all but be drop in the ocean and pale in comparison to his, Pitou slips out.

 

It's night time in a world skimmed in silver and moonlit dusk. He has awaken under a stretch of gleaming white, bleached bone. ( And he does not know it yet, but it is also the same world that he'll soon leave under ).

 

Plated gold, wild gaze, carefully tracks the movement of something far away. Something with a fresh, beating, vulnerable heart. A heart that can easily become as sullen as ash beneath his clawtips.

And furthermore, the most intriguing thing of all, is that it’s a heart that belongs trespasser.

 

He focuses acute vision in the distance.

_Oh._

_There you are. Found you._

There is just something engaging about the prospect of a challenge, something to finally, _finally_ test his limits. The world is big and he is small, but maybe he won't _feel_ so small after he knows what he can do-- discovers it for himself.

 

In many ways, Pitou is still animal too, just like the soldier in the cave, because primal urge breathes sweetly across his spine. He feels it’s presence in heated skin, cool and crisp with clarity, leaving behind butterflies in his gut, but not from nervousness.

 

The anticipation first begins in his stomach, then travels to his thighs in reflex, swelling the sinews. Boundless energy builds, gathers-- enough to last him in one leap. Skin pulling, taut.

He springs.

 

Pitou splits the sky like a lightning bolt, breaking the boundaries of wordly speed as he jettisons across the sky in a delicate arch.

( He is the feline, leaping after prey. He is the cat, agile and carrying all the surefootedness of his ancestors with a pounce. )

Excitement, wicked, steals his breath and makes itself a home in glistening blood, breathing new found life against a brazen heart. It is the best kind of gift the world has to offer him so far.

 

The target is within reach. Helplessly clueless. Helplessly _slow_.

All it takes a single fluid motion.

A graceful swipe like a practiced ballet, a flash of opaque nails to kiss skin, and he completely severs bone, tendon and all from the human’s shoulder. The arm comes flying away.

When he lands, Pitou turns and he sees,

white hair.

There are others that stand behind the man with the hair of snow, but Pitou ignores them. He won't remember their faces, even as they come back later, to shake his world apart.

A cry, a scream, so guttural and raw greets the brief night silence. The scream is pushed from the throat of one youthful, and it is bright and sounds like gnashing fangs and a declaration of war.

 

Moments later, it is cut.

What happens next to them, Pitou does not bother looking long enough to find the answer.

Attention is drawn back to the long-legged man.

 

Pitou lowers and widens his stance. Feels strength furrow into every inch of his intramuscular system. Eyes the inflicted injury that weeps raw and open.

Impulsively, draws a coral tongue across his lips, half shadowed in smirk.

 

( Blood draws predators. )

 

Pitou is, cat claws, manicured to a fine point. A force capable of destruction. And what makes him dangerous in that moment, is the fact that he knows it.

 _'I want to play,’_ his swaying tail declares. _‘Come dance with me.’_

If the human's movements ever stagger with pain, he does a good job in not showing it. He does not falter. Not even as he takes his funny clown head, and draws his weapon from it.

Pitou coos his curiosity.

“Oh, so you can do stuff like that?”

_That was possible through nen! How fascinating. Is he what they call a conjurer?_

 

Pitou can tell, clear as day, that this is a special human, by the flow of aura around him, and the sight of him just makes the guard's teeth _itch_.

 

_I think I might have hit jackpot._

&

When their limbs and their hands are spinning faster than sound, it occurs to Pitou that there's something incredibly intimate about this-- about fighting. It conveys more than words, could convey more than emotion could give. Fighting, fast and furious, strips you down to your barest essentials. In the heat of desperation and battle, when you must do everything to survive, there is nothing to hide. There is only the truth hidden in the wild abandon with the swiftness of movement that makes fighting feels so much like a slice of heaven.

Pitou can feel their hearts dancing the same tune. In this dance of life and death, there are no personas equipped. It is just them, and the story their bodies will tell.

 

Pitou looks at the stranger through a haze of flying attacks and thinks,

 

_What kind of story are you trying to tell me?_

&

The earth warmed and came to life. 

Sun, bringing fresh dawn, rose over the vast outline of hills, stretching it’s radiance against the sky. The frenzied struggle for victory is lain in broken tree stumps and the grass, laden with early morning moisture, bears witness to the aftermath of the battle.

A lonely guardian cradles a head between his hands, nestled onto his lap. Pats it like a fine, treasured piece of china.

 

Who knew that life could be unraveled so easily at the tiniest slip of claws?

It is then that Pitou discovers that:

life is clockwork.

But his hands have the power to stop the time.

&

Pitou is back. Back in the room with the block of gleaming ice, staring at the life-starved body of the man with eyes once slanted in secretive shades.

He can feel the phantom sensation of snake-bite attacks and the ghost of ferocious movements just days before.

 

Wishes for it again.

 

He has been thinking for a while. He thinks about control. He thinks about needles buried into yielding tissue, and he thinks about puppets and puppeteers and spider-web strings.

 

The answer is painfully, simple. So much so that it almost hurts.

Toys get broken. Toys need to be repaired and assembled again.

 _All I need is the power to bring him back_.

 

He goes in and takes that extension of himself, feels the power inside expand and twist, until it can go out into the world and do _things_ for him.

Blood vessels. Vivid lungs. Pink red heart. It is all his to control now. The corpse that’s been stitched together like ruddy patchwork, skin split into fine lines of red and raspy scarred tissue-- comes alive.

 

He has the power to rob. He has the power to take away. To steal. To make one's body no longer theirs.

 

And it is the perfect ability.

&

Pitou knows he is a magnificent predator. A barbaric, apex thing, born for greatness and meant to tear the world asunder. Machinated is the network of blood bones and veins that make up his wiry, powerful little frame.

 

The second to be birthed as ideally as he is Shaiapouf. Shaiapouf, who was just born, who is all lean, svelte grace. The middle child is brittle where Pitou is curious. All bronze but still meticulous and calculative all the same-- perhaps even more than Pitou. And _something_ ugly swims within that hooded gaze. He walks with an air of regality, of elegance. Carries a poise about his footsteps that could topple the world. Pitou cannot help but be entranced, especially when he draws his bow and violin, and plays an orchestra that tells more than he could ever say.

 

He first appears when a dim veil of ghosts arrive on the horizon, and Pitou holds the sight in wonder.

 

 _‘What to do what to do…’_ Mind chimes in sing song as nails go _tap tap tap_ against the inside of his thigh.

“It won't hurt to wait and see.” A voice, not far away. Very very close, in fact.

“That's true. They could be decoys,” His response is easeful, and he does not even bother to turn and face the stranger. Not yet, at least. “Ah, did I talk out loud?"

“No. I can merely sense what you are thinking.”

“Who are you?” Pitou finally asks at lean-legs and frilled cuffs. Delicate wings and their scales, glistening like flecks of many stars, fill his sight. _Pretty._

Pitou watches as unknown ant tilts his chin into the crook of his hand and, nose pointed--( haughty? ) presents himself as royal guard to the queen.

Pitou blinks, and then,

 _'What a weirdo,’_ He thinks without reservation.

 

“Yes, I know.” Pouf takes it all in stride. Doesn't hesitate, really.

 

A sheepish smile dots Pitou's face.

 &

Later, Pitou will discover, Pouf is ice and yet fire at the same time-- mind sharp and shrewd, yet dictated by the intensity of his emotions and his delusion. Pitou doesn’t know that he won’t live long enough to discover that other side to him.

Still, for now, they sit side by side and enjoy each other's company as they wait for a king to come, and a brother who will soon join them.

 

( They are both royal guards. Pitou thinks the similarities might stop at that. But they share more than that, because they are both creatures of war, of dedication and duty. 

& 

Enter Menthuthuyoupi. He is all solid muscle, blunt, brute strength and austere features. His hands are calloused, rough and strong. There’s something sincere about the way he carries himself though. His movements are not viper-slick like Pouf’s. He is the opposite. He is clumsy and loud and guttural. His voice rasps where Pouf’s is rich and airy. He is not like Pouf-- no charade adopted by instinct or intellect. So pitifully, painfully simple, and yet there’s something about his very bestial nature that brims with unorthodox charm.

&

The King came alive, and the queen, she was screaming screaming screaming.

 

The pinnacle of evolution did not announce his birth on silent wings. He was unstoppable, angry thunder. Every bit as loud as Pitou expected him to be. Rapid and like the crack of blazing fire, he emerged _gloriously_ , causing wounds so severe that they'd never be right again.

 

The queen buckled, and the King stood up from her, casting his shadow over all. Or rather-- he was like the _sun_ , rising, on an undiscovered land.

The sight would be brutal, to anyone.

But not to the royal guards, whose hearts are pure with flame and fervor for the crown. The earth and the light must know where it stands in relation to the King. Any shred of autonomy they once owned has now been rubbed, viciously, to stringy shreds. But that's okay. It is much, much easier to allow their bodies to be used for the King’s service.

It is what they were born for.

 

It is all that they are _good_ for.

&

There's a familiar voice behind him, inquiring for his help.

 

Pitou pauses. Turns to face bird wings and pleading eyes. Clicks his tongue gingerly as he struggles to remember the name of the squadron leader, beseeching. ( _Who were you again? Cole? Colin? Colton?_ )

 

"Help me save the queen!" he says, and desperation marks his voice.  
  
_You're still worried over that_ _thing?_ _Run along now._

“The queen has served her purpose.”

Pitou’s crescent smile turns simpering.

“She doesn't matter to us anymore.”

 

The Queen has outlived her worth, her usefulness. And yet, others inquire after her-- worried for a dying monarch who holds about as much worth as dust. Pitou does not quite understand. What can she do for them?

Even through her broken body, her duty fulfilled--

 

What good is she to him, to anyone?

&

The King walks like there nothing within this world that the he cannot handle; and that much is true.

 

Pitou awes, marvels at the image of perfection; of unrivaled form, of god-like intellect, scalpel-sharp, ready to cut and pick apart with deadly decision. Their King is in a word, a being given life by the careless gods. Pitou could not be any happier.

  
  
The earth exists to please him, Pitou knows. The world? His kingdom, and like any monarch, he is destined to conquer and lay claim to it, to rule and devastate by his say so.

Sometimes Pitou thinks the King is so wonderful that he does not need protecting. But Pitou cannot escape the role he has been born into ( but even then, he feels he must be somewhere to guide him through all of it ).

&

The human they find inside the palace is a fool.

 

He fancied himself a king above theirs.

 

King-- it’s a title meant to inspire fear and promote obedience and order; but nothing without the power to reinforce it. Power at the end of the day, was a singular sign of rightness. Morality, civility, laws, customs. None of them meant anything before the King. Within his fingers, he held the power to make his will manifest. He held power over others. Power to kill, to steal, and destroy. Power to lay waste, to ravage. Power to rob peace from the earth. Life was fleeting, and they were all but motes of dust.

 

But the ant king alone had the power to immortalize himself, and make them all remember him. A being, a legend, never forgotten.

The fool drivels and babbles until the _real_ King, kills him.

&

Pitou is devious sometimes. Most times, in fact. Canines trimmed and primed, to destroy those who oppose the King’s will and tyranny. Or rather, not tyranny, but utter, divine right. The right to rule over all. It's a ruthless power that comes from birthright, and the King exerts it as he should.

 

"Rowdy," Pouf observes as he watches Pitou’s unruly mannerisms. Despite it all, Pitou thinks secretly to himself, Pouf does not mind.  
  
"Only to you," Pitou will playfully counter back. He is sitting as he usually does-- legs folded, bent neatly-- feels the purr building in the base of his throat until it’s rolling between bone-white teeth with a cheeky grin.

&

There are many things that Pitou has familiarized over the course of his short, short life. Things he has remembered because he has not slept since the moment he was born:

The odd, bow legged gait of Youpi's legs. Shark teeth and his ravenous hunger.

Violet eyes.

The shapes of heart patterns traced on the smooth edges scintillating of butterfly wings, and his theatrics. Listening to the flowery spiel and the emotional episodes that came with it. Being there for him, just to listen.

And most of all:

Their presence. The presence of his… co -workers ( friends? ~~siblings~~? ), and the peace of mind of that came with knowing. Knowing he can work beside them. Knowing that he can trust them, and that they trust him in turn.

 

He familiarizes it all.

&

Sitting around is dull.

  
When he sits on his post, Pitou's mind wanders. He sits, counts the stars. Thinks about the impossible. Thinks about a life; one not bound to duty (impossible, he knows, but it doesn’t hurt to dream. )  
  
He thinks about what he would do, if he had all the freedom in the world. He thinks about a life of adventure and exploration. He would go traipsing around the earth, heart singing fast, uncovering it’s little secrets and treasures for himself, fighting the strongest beings it has to offer him ( He could bring Pouf along as well. He’s always been too uptight-- deserves to enjoy and appreciate the little things in life. It would be good for him. Maybe he would love something like that. And Youpi-- Youpi could come too, if he wanted. )

 

Pitou misses the little things sometimes, and in the muted light of dawn, retraces their vivid memory. He misses the books he used to read, when there was still a queen and he had all the time in the world to himself to become acquainted with parched paper and ink. He misses the little chemistry lab he had constructed in the old nest. Misses the hours spent pouring over research and test results, feeling the satisfaction of his efforts unfurling. Longs to have that again.

 

He thinks about scars he would obtain in the heat of battle, in the midst of all. Scars so beautiful, ridged, puckered to decorate his frame. Scars he could cherish like precious strings of jewelry. More precious than gold or silk, perhaps. He could heal them of course, but he decided he wouldn't want to.  
  
In the silence that stretches the sky above him and fills it’s space, Pitou sits and runs his sub jointed fingers across the skin where they'd be, mapping out their imaginary trajectory. He'd wear them like trophies.

&

Komugi is too smart for her own good, sometimes-- at least when she is thinking in patterned tiles. Lamb in the lion's den, Pitou first thought when she came into the palace _click click click_ with the heel of her cane against polished marble floor gleaming like precious gemstone.

 

_The king will gobble her up soon enough._

 

But he doesn't. And Pitou isn’t sure if it's because of the human girl's cunning and wit-- savant on a checkerboard, or because of something else. Something that unfolds, sunlit and pleading for space within timid words but swift hands and disciplined movement on a material battlefield. It's nothing short of miraculous.

 

Komugi, frail girl. Weak girl. Lamb sitting in a den of lions, but they can no longer ignore her.

Every moment she stumps the King. Sliding pieces across a board framed in black and white. ( Yin and yang ). Fragments the fluidity of his movements until it is nothing but shards and glass. She does the impossible; what no one else could.

It is only a game, but somehow, it is terrifying and pitifully awe inspiring.

 

Pitou likes that _._ Likes _her_. ( Komugi is no longer just a name. It becomes the first human name Pitou has memorized. The first name he has memorized outside of Menthuthuyoupi, and Shaiapouf. )

And Pitou learns from Komugi. Watches as she twists the king. She takes his cold fire and melds him into something softer. Melting titanium isn't an easy job, but Komugi, she does it. Clumsy girl with a heart of fresh spring roses and morning star. She does that and more.

&

Her arrival throws them into disarray. She intrudes, unnaturally, upon their dynamic. She stirs and coaxes disorder. Komugi does it quietly, and she does it well. If it is a good type of disorder or a bad one, Pitou cannot be sure. Most bizarrely of all, he does not mind. But Pitou knows why: she is good for the king. She challenges his mind, and Pitou sees them both _grow_ and evolve in ways he hadn’t thought possible before.

Pouf worries. He frets, and tries not to let the panic slice through the thin veneer of ease that lacquers him like a mask.

Komugi has turned them all upside down.

 

She no longer became the lamb in the den of the lions but the lamb that sat _with_ the lions.

Pitou's diamond-hard resolve for the king is still there, but in many ways it has become more than just a transparent, shallow slice of loyalty ( it is undying, unconditional love ). New presence begins to unravel in warm, tender-lit blooms and with a sickly sweet squeeze in his chest.

There’s a word for it, but Pitou does not know yet-- can’t dig deep enough within himself to find out, because he has never had to face the horrible reality of truth and self reflection. It remains nameless.

 

And the strangest thing of all: This language of compassion doesn’t just reside within him.

 

It sits in the shape of two figures sitting at a table, hunched with eagle-eye focus, and exchanging planned movements. Comfort takes the shape of a room cramped with tension, and precisely placed pieces ( Smooth game pieces, black and white, in the grip of lingering hands ). Humanity unfolds, seamlessly, and fits the space of just the two of them.

 

Pitou watches, day by day, as ant King challenges himself. Opposes his predominance, and _blooms_.

&

He is a King without a name. He is just a title, with all the power to reinforce it but no foundation. He asks for their council. Asks for a _name_.

 

One they cannot give him.

 

“I think your feelings are most important.”

 

“Take up what you love,” Pitou does not tell the king. He says, instead “Take a name that makes you happy.” _Do_ what makes you happy.

_I cherish that part of you._

_And I value the part of you that's satisfied, most of all._

 

Pitou no longer thinks the King is titanium. He is more like iron now. Iron will bend. These days he feels like he's no longer stepping around a divine, untouchable being, but ceramic.

But that's okay. It's okay for the King to be soft. It's okay for him to be what he was not born to be. And most of all, he needs to understand that.

 

Because he deserves to prosper, and he deserves a type of freedom untempered by expectations ( he needs this ). He deserves to explore the human parts of himself. The part that lays away, slowly emerging. Bit by bit. Chipping, chasing away blase, emotionless indifference.

 

_Be earnest with yourself. It will be fine, through all. It might not matter to you, but I'll still be here._

&

There is _something_.

 

Pitou doesn’t know what it is, but it is a static _something_ that buzzes inside his chest, faint, ever so faint. Feather light and glancing. Instinct rears its ugly head once more, his premonition a scream far away.

Even still, that is all it takes for him to turn his attention towards the heavens.

 

He sits, and he watches, and he waits. Ever the vigilant guardian.

Fire-coal eyes witnesses a dragon invade the quiet sky.

&

There's an attack finally _finally_ for the first time in months, and Pitou shouldn't be excited but he is. Heart gives a quick little skip at the glittering yellow dragon that comes skimming from above. Not on wings, because it falls, and it stoops to destroy. Pitou gives a cadenced click of his spine as he straightens. Tenses defined, molded muscle until they become dense with lethal power. Begins to _pounce_.

 

Golden fire-rain traces the air, shrapnel sharp. But Pitou is agile, and he moves like lightning, darting through it with ease.

 

There's a man in the storm of light. Suddenly, Pitou is processing nen-arms moving far too late.

He's smacked away from the palace, away from the king he's meant to protect. Bitter wind stings at his throat like ash, coats his gums, along with something like _failure_.

 

 

Plumes of smoke lazily curl from the palace, and Pitou watches numbly as the world falls away from him.

&

When he makes it back, through an agonizing and suspenseful struggle against time and speed, through being struck by the sheer venom of the King’s presence ( Stinging, broken glass. Pitou wants to feel that never again. _Never again_ ), he slips into the palace. Grey, murky light is leaking into the room, casting it’s dusky silhouette, a breaking shadow. Everything seems far away.

 

There’s Komugi, delicate, curled in strong arms. Meruem asks Pitou to heal her. Heal _them_.

 

_The King is entrusting his happiness to me._

Pitou has handled humans like dolls that are meant to be broken, with disregard, just because he could, and his talons spun the webs that framed their bodies.

He is not used to treating life so preciously, so reverently.

Pitou does not treat Komugi like a doll.

Pitou instead treats human life, this time, as if it’s invaluable truth has been etched, carved into him by time ( it has ).

He summons big head, big eyes and parched lips, and begins to work.

&

When Pitou is at his most vulnerable, intruders come. They arrive when he has been stripped of defense by his own ability ( double-edged sword ). It is as if they have sniffed out his weakness.

There’s two children. One is a stranger, on the outside looking in. The other, however, he is fire and brimstone and pieces of something-- brindled and tulle, held together thinly at the edges. Not quite there yet. Just about ready to crumble. When Pitou sees him, something cold rises to his stomach and fills his chest. There is ice in his throat. Dread settles into his gut like winter and hoarfrost.

The air this child brings, it is tainted and the foulness of it becomes mourning. When he speaks, his breath forms the fire and rage but everything about it just echoes pure a staccato beat of _pure_ wrongness.

This human-- he mourns without being able to quite as gracefully articulate the incoherent, babbling rage of his thought process.

 

It is a broken type of grieving. It reminds Pitou of rust and rot.

&

Pitou has never begged in his life before. He always thought that maybe, it would taste bitter acrid and something like shame and bile.

 

But when he begs and gives amber-eyed boy the power to render him meek, it tastes something like desperation and love for a King whose soul is fragile with affection. A soul he _must_ protect.

 

 _“Please wait,”_ He beseeches, palms face up flat.

 

Sweat becomes a second skin he knows all too well. His malice, his power-- gone. The roles are reversed. This boy, he is now the predator, and Pitou feels a lot like prey with: doe-eyes and frail limbs and a throat all too ready to be snatched. Throat too vulnerable; and the one whose teeth poised above him will not hesitate.

&

“I must save her.”

   
Pitou offers his arms, his legs, _anything._

Child-soldier glissandos from searing, to dark and hollow, and then burning again. With scars laid bare, so loud and ugly that Pitou cannot tear his eyes away from them.

 

 _Crack crack_ , goes the splinter of bone, when he breaks his own arm.

&

  
He has been given one hour. One hour to work with Dr. Blythe's spindly, spider limbs pressed against scarred tissue and the torn stomach of a girl who balances fate in her immobile form.

Pitou says nothing when he agrees. His voice ( suspenseful, bated ) has become the dried well between parted lips. Weaponized boy comes closer, sits before him, and draws a knee against his chest.

All there is left is to wait, and hope that Komugi will make it through all. To return to the one that has changed his life all for her. Just for her.

 

She is important. Too important.

&

Pitou bides his chance. He becomes adder in waiting. This boy, he is a threat. A threat to the gilded crown, and not because of the power he bears now, but because of the potential he brings; the determination and resolution that makes enemies dangerous. The fervor that turns the weak _impossible, unstoppable_.

 

Komugi has been taken hostage, and his heart rises to his chest then his throat, like bile.

&

Their steps silently echo throughout the hall. Two figures score a lonely path in folding light.

Somewhere, a phone rings, it’s voice masked by footsteps. Only cat ears can hear.

Claws guide themselves towards his pocket, where a phone awaits, silently buzzing.

He waits, he listens to the false imitations of a nasally voice, not knowing that he has been fooled, has been played like a harp.

 

He goes weak with relief anyways.

_Komugi is safe._

 

Then,

_It would be so easy._

There is nothing holding him back. No hostage, no threat to Komugi’s safety.

 

He could lunge for child-soldier's head. He could snuff that young fire, that dangerous flame. It would not even take a second.

 _No_.

Pitou continues to walk. Wounded, weaponized boy has respected his wishes. Has sat for him patiently as he healed Komugi, despite his smoldering fury and his venom-hate.

 

Pitou could at least, extend that favor. He has changed. He has grown.

He is trustworthy.

 

And despite the opportunity that has come bearing itself, Pitou does not lunge. Though his muscles twitch their agitation, they do not allow him to turn and spin and leap, claws flexed and bloodthirsted, as he should have.

 

It is an act of humanity.

It is an act that cements his death.

&

They stand in a room of shadows.

He remembers this corpse. Stitched skin. Slanted eye. Dollface. Dead. Very, very dead. Has been for a while, really.

Child-soldier asks him to heal this, but Pitou cannot.

 

Puppeteer cannot bring back what has already been defaced. He has never learned to give life where he has taken it away.

Once he takes, he never gives back.

“What is your name?” Pitou asks. Because it is worth knowing. Because the disdain and the hostility he should feel building underneath skin refuses to hold. It only slips away, falling falling falling. Shattering, porcelain, onto grey ash tiles.

 

He finds amorality a lot harder to keep a hold of these days.

The child says his name is

 

Gon Freecss.

 

Study the lines and the contours and the shadows of his face. Remember the angles in its entirety. Remember it well. This boy is not just a faceless opponent or mite soon to be crushed mercilessly, underfoot. Respect the memory he has lain in Pitou’s mind. _Acknowledge it._

 _Yes_ , Pitou thinks with sudden, newfound understanding, and the revelation is like light bulbs flashing, flickering on in his mind. This child is no longer just a nameless enemy. He is special, significant, because he has cornered Pitou like no one else has been able to. He is an equal.

 

“This man,” He begins. “Is already dead.”

Meanwhile, behind him, gossamer boy falls to his knees. Shakes and tears himself apart, from inside out.

&

Pitou pays the price for his honesty, first.

 

“I’m sorry Gon,” The apology tastes foreign on his tongue, but it fits as if it belongs there, ~~and perhaps it does~~ ~~because in some part, large or small, this is his fault.~~

He lifts his arm. Inspects opaque claws. Anticipates ( can he even call it anticipation anymore? ) the moment claws will sink swiftly, mercifully, into soft flesh and it will all be over.

It will not be a triumphant kill.

Once-upon-a-time Pitou would have anticipated taking Gon's life. But there is no pride here.

“But I must kill you. For the King.” Always for the King. Pitou would do anything for him. He loves him that much.

 

Pay attention, Pitou. This is where lit ember becomes the night sky, lingering between the otherworldly and something still unbearably _human_.

The boy erupts.

He is like a broken glass. Overflowing. Bleeding his hurt into the world. His injury laid bare for all to see.

This is an injury that is old and ugly and unhealed. It is rotten black with infection, and it festers.

This is no mere rage, Pitou thinks. Rage does not feel violet, a fresh, deep bruise. It is not overwhelming in the way that _this_ is. It does not steal the air or the breath from a room. It does not breathe like a welt, hugging every corner with vitriol until Pitou is practically suffocating.

 

Wounded boy lets his injury hold him, blend into him until Pitou can no longer tell it apart from him.

&

Pitou knows this cannot go on. And yet he follows behind silently, tense resolution coursing electricity through weary bones.

 

He stares at the back of a beastly boy now turned _man_. Unnatural. Forced.

Take the chance, take the chance now.

 

_He plans to kill me, I plan to kill him._

Monstrous child’s back is bared towards him, nape beared. Animalistic tendencies rears itself again.

 _I'll make it quick. I'll make it painless_.

 _It is the least I can do_.

It can only end like this, in a circle of bitter bloodshed.

But he can fix this mistake.

He can make it make back to the others, alive and breathing and grateful for having acted now rather than later.

 

A decision is made. Muscles, they bunch beneath his tight skin with a deft crouch.

Leap.

Pitou slips past him, but Gon moves aside like it does not take him even a moment to think.

There's a knee in Pitou's gut.

 

He is now a rag doll, rendered helpless, like one of his victims. Breath cannot even escape, not even husky with pain, not even enough to scream.

Pitou spits up blood like morning phlegm-- royal blue, and the taste of it on his tongue is bitter.

 

Momentum takes him forward. Up up up, towards the heavens.

 

 _Oh,_ He thinks far too late, long after his body has processed the blow, and he's already spinning upwards.

 

Distantly, he wonders if looking up from the ground below, he looks funny, especially when he's falling in reverse, limbs flailing like the broken puppet that he is.

 _I have made a mistake_.

 

Split lip. Gurgle in the throat. Struggling for gasps like his life depends on it ( it really does ). There is _ache_ in the lungs and his belly ( hot hot hot ) and panic somewhere deeper within. Wheeze with each exhale, with each smothered grunt. Try not to choke on it, Pitou.

 

The world is spinning, and Pitou can no longer tell up from down. All he can do is try to catch precious air that will slip from his grasp the moment he tastes it on the back of his tongue.

 

He is coming closer to the ground.

But there's an aura that all looks too much like the sun in a fiery sky, and he's being _burned_ by it. He can't see, can't even breathe. He is on FIRE.

 

_What's happening, what's happening to me?_

He is sent pirouetting ungracefully through sharp trees.

Everything hurts.

Royal guard’s face is face is broken, slathered with the taste of iron-blooded indigo and drenched in sweat. His back is adjacent to the tree’s trunk. ( Perhaps shattered. Pitou does not know. )

The past few weeks of his life are like rain, sliding all around him in a buzz, dew drop heavy and fat. He forces air into his throat. Pulls it along into a wobbly gut. Focuses on living, for now. For just a little while longer.

 

He can’t help but think, it wasn’t supposed to end like this.

 

_Keep breathing._

He may be delaying the inevitable, but he can drag it out for as long as possible. As long as he needs to to keep the King safe.

He has the power to sink his fangs into the King’s throat.

 

The throat of a King he won’t reach, because Pitou is now dying in his place instead.

Gon Freecss was born with _immeasurable_ talent, but he has thrown it all away for this moment. This moment of sheer vengeance.

 

Little ant child, cruel puppeteer, has never been more terrified than he is right now. Terror is a new experience. It feels a lot like a thunderous heart trembling violently against the hollow of crushed rib cage. It feels like emptiness and a longing for all the things he's ever had and wanted to have and all the people he ever wanted to see again that he knows he won't. ( Meruem. Pouf. Youpi. Komugi. )

 

Terror plagues him, and not because he faces an indomitable enemy, but because he is dying and he will do it

 _alone_.

 

And maybe it does scare him a little ( --a lot ), but nothing scares him more than what might happen to the King.

 

He is too weak, too useless, too tired to even move.

Strength does not pity him and it left him long ago. Now he rests where he lay, bones split under the weight of his torso. Pain searing.

His whole world has been reduced to the single action of breathing; every thought and muscle inclined towards taking in just a little more air. It was all he had left to prove to himself he wasn’t dead.

 

And he sits, and he thinks.

_I wonder how the King is faring. He must have already taken care of the intruders._

Of course he has. Because he knows that his King is: dazzling, radiant. Fate would not let it be anything other than so.

And Pitou, dying, thinks of Komugi ( safe, happy), and Youpi and Pouf ( they’ll be fine ).

Monstrous puppeteer blinks, unable to tell what awaits him, barely able to see through the gash in his head and the blood burbling hot rivulets into his eye.

 

Devotion is still stamped upon his brow. Hanging silently in the blood that dribbles from still lips.

There’s a full moon.

 

It's night time in a world skimmed in silver and moonlit dusk. It is a world Pitou will leave under.

He thinks not of what will happen after. Not what will happen after the others find his mutilated corpse ( if they ever find him ) deep in the belly of the forest. He thinks of what was. He thinks of a King who will be happy. Who will be safe.

Cat vision barely perceives raised fist, curled fingers, ( the hands are no longer trembling with rage now. They are steady. Methodical. ) and the glow of blemishing light in the palm of Gon's hand.

In the end, Pitou dies a pitifully slow death. Because his skin is harder than steel, and he bears the brunt of each blow with love for a nameless King. In the name of duty, he seeps veins of rich blue that disturbs the cool earth beneath him. His consciousness, in the end, isn’t even merciful enough to drag him into complete oblivion. He does not fade kindly away.

 

And perhaps, it is because there are no happy endings for monsters.

But,

he is grateful.

Because his endeavors weren't in vain.

&

The sun rises, shedding it’s face over burnt tree stumps. It traverses carefully, lovingly over the weathered earth, beaten by the passage of time.

Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months.

 

The aftermath of that fateful battle is laid witness to by scarred forest and decimated tree stumps.

 

Somewhere, stump head lies broken in a sable wasteland charred to dirt grey ash.

 

Pitou is forgotten, and alone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> first time writing a fandom character. this oneshot was very difficult to work with but very rewarding. feedback is always appreciated. let me know how i did! i am not very good when it comes to writing emotional things, my strong suit is in physical detail and all.


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